The director of public prosecutions has taken charge of an intensive review of the prosecutions of journalists after a critical judgment last week by the Court of Appeal.
Alison Saunders and a team of lawyers will work through the Easter break to decide whether to proceed with eight pending trials arising from Operation Elveden, the investigation into journalists paying public officials.
A series of acquittals and hung juries has put the handling of the long investigation by Ms Saunders, her predecessor, Keir Starmer, QC, and the Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, under

The criminal justice system is at a “tipping point” which risks defendants in
criminal trials going unrepresented and crimes unprosecuted, a new report
warns.
Court staff have been reduced to a point “where it is only by their good will
that some are able to function at all,” the report by a former circuit
judge, His Honour Geoffrey Rivlin, says.
“It is impossible to ignore that the CJS [criminal justice system] is
chronically short of money,” it says.
Cuts to the police and Crown Prosecution Service are “preventing some
prosecutions taking place at all,” the report

The country’s most senior prosecutors held crisis talks last night over the future of Operation Elveden, the £20 million criminal investigation into newspaper payments for information.
Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, called senior Treasury counsel and Metropolitan police officers days after the lord chief justice questioned the use of a 13th-century law of misconduct in public office to pursue reporters through the courts.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd quashed three Elveden convictions last week and said prosecutors had to prove that misconduct was not merely a disciplinary ma

The family friend of a former manager at Logica jailed last week for insider dealing has been hit with a fine for his part in the market abuse.
Kenneth Carver, a retired accountant, was fined £35,212 for insider dealing after buying shares in the IT consultancy based on inside information, the Financial Conduct Authority said yesterday.
Mr Carver bought 62,000 Logica shares after receiving a leak from Ryan Willmott about a proposed cash takeover of Logica at a big premium to its prevailing share price.
Mr Carver made a profit of £24,206.70 when he sold the shares after Logica told the stoc